Access Control Challenges for Cyber-Physical Systems

With the growth of wireless networks and mobile devices, we are moving closer towards an era of cyberphysical systems (CPSs). Such systems have the potential to benefit numerous applications in areas as diverse as military, financial, and health care. However, security issues must be addressed before CPSs can be widely deployed. The problem is serious because CPSs involve interactions between a large number of entities that can span different organizational boundaries. Unlike traditional applications, these applications do not usually have well-defined security perimeters and are dynamic in nature. Moreover, these applications use knowledge of surrounding physical spaces. This requires security policies to use contextual information that, in turn, must be adequately protected from security breaches. Uncontrolled disclosure of information or unconstrained interactions among entities can lead to very serious consequences. Traditional access control policies and mechanisms rarely address these issues and are thus inadequate for CPSs. New models and mechanisms are needed to protect such applications.